FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 



89 



red. The flowers are sul)tended by scales or bracts, and are unisexual 

 and monoecious, the staminate and pistillate occurring on the same 

 plant. There is usually a small perianth consisting of a single series 

 (calyx), but even this is sometimes wanting. Some of these plants 

 are much sought on account of their supposed medicinal virtues; this 

 is particularly true of Cynomorium coccinewn^ a south European plant 

 which on the Island of Malta was formerly carefully guarded, and its 

 growth and gathering supervised by a person specially appointed to 

 that office under the English government. Various species of Bala- 

 nophora furnish a sort of wax which is used by the natives of Java for 

 making candles. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Orders Aristolochiales and Pohjgonales. 



The order Aristolochiales includes three families. The group is 

 distinguished by the perianth, which although strictly a calyx, is very 



Fig. 74.— The Goose-flower (Aristolochia fatens) and leaf; both one-half 

 natural size. Original. 



often showily colored like a corolla; it is either cup-shaped and regular 

 or tubular and very irregular in shape. The ovary is inferior, and 

 several-celled instead of one-celled as in the Santalales. a 



